Project Background

Chengdu Link Aerospace Technology Co., Ltd. is an emerging aerospace manufacturing enterprise equipped with comprehensive facilities and a professional, well-established production management system. The company’s Phase I facility is located at He Rui South Road in the West Hi-Tech Zone of Chengdu, occupying approximately 5,500 square meters of existing production and office space. Its Phase II facility is situated in the Shifang Economic Development Zone of Deyang City, covering an area of about 53,000 square meters.The company currently employs between 100 and 499 people, with approximately 80% holding associate degrees or higher. Link Aerospace has established a robust management system aligned with its operational needs and strategic development goals. It has successively obtained certifications including Class III State Secrets Qualification, GJB9001B-2009, GB/T19001-2008, and a Weaponry Equipment Research & Production License.As a high-tech enterprise, Link Aerospace specializes in the R&D and manufacturing of high-quality carbon fiber composite products and provides professional solutions in structural lightweight design, composite material forming, component assembly, and non-destructive testing. The company has introduced world-class digital intelligent equipment and established multiple advanced production lines, including:CNC machining lines、Digital composite forming lines、Automated assembly lines、Digitalized special-process inspection lines。Link Aerospace serves a broad customer base across aerospace, astronautics, marine engineering, rail transit, and new-energy vehicles. The company aspires to become a world-class supplier of aerospace products and is committed to building a highly skilled, capable, and specialized talent team. Guided by the mission “Serving the Nation through Aviation, Strengthening the Country through Industry,” Link Aerospace values knowledge and individuality, and places strong emphasis on attracting, cultivating, and retaining top talent.

Project Objectives

Through the implementation of the SIPM/PLM project, the following objectives are to be achieved:

Controlled Release of Technical Documentation: All drawings, documents, and other technical materials must be archived in PLM before distribution (i.e., document control personnel in the documentation office will download PDFs from PLM for printing and issuance only after formal archiving).

Consistency Between Electronic and Paper Data: Achieve integrated application of three structural formats—3D models, 2D drawings, and electronic designs—to ensure data consistency across digital and physical representations.

Standardized Engineering Change Management: Formalize and enforce a controlled, standardized process for managing engineering changes to ensure all technical modifications are properly governed.

Knowledge Sharing and Experience Database: Establish a centralized knowledge base to enable rapid knowledge transfer and real-time sharing across the organization, thereby reducing the cost and inefficiencies associated with knowledge dissemination.

Increased Design Standardization Rate: Enhance the proportion of standardized designs to improve efficiency, quality, and reusability.

Integration of PLM and ERP Systems: Connect PLM with ERP to create a seamless flow of technical data across the enterprise, breaking down data silos and enabling end-to-end information integration.

Institutionalization of R&D Processes: Embed and standardize the company’s product development workflows to drive consistent, high-quality R&D execution.

End-to-End Project Lifecycle Management: Apply systematic methods, tools, and processes to plan, organize, coordinate, control, and monitor projects throughout their entire lifecycle, ensuring efficient and high-quality achievement of project goals.

Based on on-site assessments and blueprint design workshops—and combining Link Aerospace’s actual business requirements with SIPM’s extensive consulting expertise—the SIPM implementation team has developed a precise and tailored business management blueprint for Link Aerospace.

System Functions

Coding Management:Through the implementation of SIPM PLM, a coding management solution for materials and technical documents aligned with the company’s management requirements has been established. Leveraging SIPM PLM’s automatic coding capability, the system ensures a unique code for each item ("one item, one code").

Knowledge Base:By utilizing the Knowledge Management module of SIPM/PLM, the company has established an enterprise knowledge base to facilitate systematic knowledge accumulation and real-time sharing, thereby enabling efficient and effective knowledge transfer across the organization.

Document Templates:During implementation, SIPM consultants engaged in extensive business discussions with the client to ensure that all data and document workflows were thoroughly addressed—leaving no gaps—and fully digitized and standardized. Additionally, a process monitoring module was implemented to provide real-time oversight of all online workflows, enhancing management efficiency and identifying opportunities for continuous improvement.

Standardized Approval Workflows:Approval processes were defined according to the company’s specific business requirements, ensuring transparent, standardized sign-off procedures that are easy to monitor and control, thereby improving office efficiency.

BOM Data Management

BOM Management:With the Engineering BOM (EBOM) as the core, all design data is integrated in a structured format, enabling effective control and management of the entire design dataset.

Effective Integration of PLM System with 3D Design Systems

Based on the designs created in 3D software, the 3D models and engineering drawings are extracted through the PLM system’s 3D interface and then uploaded to the system. After undergoing the system’s approval process, signed PDF versions of the drawings are generated. This integration ensures seamless collaboration between the PLM system and 3D design tools, streamlining the design review and approval workflow.

Process Design Management

Achieve parametric and standardized process design, and automatically generate standardized printed manufacturing plans (work instructions).

Process Route Management

Operation (or Process Step) Management

Process Standards Library Management

Project Management

Project Management:Through systematic methods, tools, and standardized processes, the PLM system enables comprehensive planning, organization, coordination, control, and monitoring of the entire project lifecycle—ensuring that project objectives are achieved efficiently and with high quality.

Real-Time Project Tracking: Project progress can be directly monitored within the system, allowing managers to clearly understand current status, assign accountability, and facilitate efficient oversight.Issue Management: Abnormal issues or risks are tracked directly in the system—from issue reporting and assignment of responsible personnel to real-time monitoring of resolution progress.

Integrated Documentation: Project requirements, deliverables, and related intellectual property documents (e.g., patent files) are directly linked to the project record, enabling holistic and systematic project management.

Requirements Management

Project Template Management

Project Bill of Materials

Project Deliverables Management

Project Risk/Issue Management

Project Cost Management

Material Quota Summary List

Project Document Classification Management

Project Tracking and Monitoring

R&D Data – Process Industry Management Solution

Implement a comprehensive management solution for resin R&D workflows, covering the entire lifecycle from experimental development to mass production. The system manages experimental products along with their formulations and process plans, as well as mass-production recipes and associated manufacturing schemes.It supports the recording of performance inspection data at all stages—including incoming raw materials, in-process checks, and final product testing—and enables detailed documentation of multiple experimental iterations, ensuring full traceability and structured knowledge retention throughout the R&D process.

Experimental Product

Experimental Materials

Experimental Formula List

Experimental Formula Process

Performance Testing

Mass Production Management: Select the optimal experimental formulation and convert it into a mass production process plan.

ERP Integration: Seamlessly synchronize product data with ERP to improve data transmission efficiency and reduce manual errors.

Summary

Through the successful implementation of this PLM project, Link Aerospace has significantly enhanced its product management capabilities and improved the overall management of design and R&D processes. By integrating structural design software with the PLM system, the company has ensured standardized, consistent, and reliable product design data.The implementation has progressively increased efficiency in both product management and design/R&D activities, improved design quality, reduced product development costs, and strengthened the confidentiality of technical data.Link Aerospace has now achieved end-to-end digital management across the entire design process—from requirements and projects to products, designs, materials, drawings, and documents—all centrally managed online. This enables design engineers to quickly search and access required data, substantially boosting their productivity.With the continued application of these PLM modules, the system is evolving into a unified collaborative management platform that spans all departments across the company.